Spammers latch on to bird flu scare

Online drug peddlers are putting users lives at risks by flooding mailboxes with spam urging people to buy the anti bird flu drug Tamiflu, SophosLabs warned today. The security firm has reported that an increasing number of junk messages claiming to sell the much sought-after Tamiflu have been picked up by its spamtraps. The drug is believed to be the most effective at protecting humans from the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus. ...more

Next generation Core 2 Duo 'ready to roll'

At Intel's keynote Computex address, Executive Vice President Sean Maloney was typically bullish about Intel's forthcoming products. These include the Penryn-core, next-generation Core 2 Duo processors which use 45nm transistors. He boldly claimed that 'the yield on 45nm was looking very good' and that Intel is 'very much ready to roll' with the products. ...more

Sun spotlights Project Orion

Sun Microsystems has completed its annual Worldwide Analyst Conference in San Francisco. The major announcement from the two-day event involves 'Project Orion'. Dubbed 'a radical new approach to software design, development, and delivery', Project Orion is the codename for a change in Sun's release of software. ...more

ISPs struggle under the burden of worm-generated traffic

The costs of handling virus-infected traffic is growing by nearly 30 per cent each year and will cost European ISPs about €160mn next year, according to figures from Sandvine. The network company reckons that around 5 per cent of all Internet traffic handled by ISPs is 'malicious', rising dramatically in the event of fast spreading worms such as the network aware Sasser. But it's not just the volume of infected traffic generated by virus outbreaks, denial of service attacks and spam mass mailings that make up these extra costs. ...more

Cisco to debut new router family

Internet hardware giant Cisco Systems is said to be preparing to launch a new family of routers that can manage both voice and data applications. Consisting of seven new devices and two software applications, the Integrated Services Router will target a broad range of businesses from Cisco's traditional markets down to smaller and medium sized businesses. Cisco says that it will be launching three families of the ISR; the 3080 series for enterprises the 2800 series for medium sized companies and the 1800 series for small businesses. ...more